Senate Republicans Are Playing a Dangerous Game With the Court’s Legitimacy

In his account of why people, and nations, lie about their conduct in war, the political philosopher Michael Walzer observed: “Wherever we find hypocrisy, we also find moral knowledge.” The hypocrite appreciates as well as anyone that there is “a way of talking about wars and battles that the rest of us appreciate as morally appropriate.”

As in war, so too in politics. Tomorrow marks the start of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the coming fulfillment of the promise Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made within hours of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, 47 days before the presidential election. that this was totally consistent with his refusal to allow President Barack Obama to fill the vacancy created by Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected death almost nine months before the 2016 election. Although “since the 1880s, no Senate has confirmed an opposite-party president’s Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year,” McConnell claimed, no such tradition existed when the Senate and the president were of the same party. Days later, Senator Mitt Romney ended all speculation that conscientious Republicans would stop the party from moving forward when he released a written that adopted McConnell’s reasoning: “The historical precedent of election year nominations is that the Senate generally does not confirm an opposing party’s nominee but does confirm a nominee of its own.”